Whipped cream

A cup of hot chocolate topped with whipped cream from a pressurised can.

Cream with 30% or more fat can be mixed with air, and the resulting colloid is roughly double the volume of the original cream as air bubbles are captured in a network of fat droplets. If, however, the whipping is continued, the fat droplets will stick together destroying the colloid and forming butter; the remaining liquid is buttermilk. Confectioner's (icing) sugar is sometimes added to the colloid in order to stiffen the mixture and to reduce the risk of overwhipping.

Whipped cream may be sold ready-to-use in pressurized containers; when the cream leaves the nozzle, it produces four times the volume of cream, twice the volume produced by whipping air into it. This is known as squirty cream in the UK. Using this technique, it may also be prepared in reusable dispensers, similar to a seltzer siphon bottle, using inexpensive disposable cartridges. The whipped cream thus produced is unstable, however, and will return to a more or less liquid state within half an hour to one hour. Thus, the method is not suitable for decorating food that will not be immediately served.

Cream is usually whipped with an electric or hand mixer, and with some difficulty a fork.

Whipped cream is a popular topping for several desserts such as pie or ice cream.